


we've been down but we've never been out

by firefall



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anchors, Best Friends, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt Mason, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Post-Series, Two Measly Humans vs. A Bunch of Supernaturals: The Final Showdown, Werewolf-y Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefall/pseuds/firefall
Summary: “I don’t know about you, but I refuse to die in this tree,” Mason says, carefully pulling himself up to a standing position so he can make the precarious journey back to the ground.  “If we’re gonna die by our friends’ hands, then I at least want to die while running as fast as I can.”He has a point, so Stiles follows him down, body numb and mind racing.  “This sucks,” he says succinctly as he takes Mason’s offered hand and lands firmly on the ground.  “It sucks themost.  And we basically invented the concept of suck.  We’re sucking connoisseurs.”Someone has it out for pack humans and knows the perfect way to eliminate them.





	we've been down but we've never been out

**Author's Note:**

> What if I wrote a Teen Wolf fic every weekend for the rest of my life. What if.
> 
> This is probably two years-ish post canon? Timelines don't really matter when the show's over, so whatever. All I know is that Kira's back because she shouldn't have been gone in the first place.
> 
> I rated this Mature for violence just in case. That being said, it's not all that bad. Warnings for descriptions of blood and injuries, as well as some swearing.
> 
> Title is from "Dark Horses" by Switchfoot.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm not profiting off this work in any way. Teen Wolf and the characters belong to Jeff Davis and MTV and whoever else loves to disappoint me.

They always say that the best way to eliminate a threat is to get someone else to do it for you.  Unfortunately, the “you” in question seems to be a group of vengeful omegas with some kind of supernatural magic they’ve never seen before, and the “someone else” is Scott’s pack.  And, in a turn of events so shocking even Stiles didn’t see it coming, the “threats” they’re trying to get rid of?  Humans.  Specifically pack humans.  Specifically Stiles and Mason.

Which is why they’re currently huddled in a tree in the middle of some upstate forest with Mason’s phone out, googling CAN WOLVES CLIMB TREES in all caps.  As it turns out, they can.  Quite easily, in fact.  There are YouTube videos and everything.

“We don’t have a chance,” Mason mumbles as he tucks his phone back into his pocket.  “They’re gonna kill us.”  Then he squeezes his eyes shut tight, pressing his fingers against his temples.  “I’m gonna puke.”

“Don’t you dare,” Stiles orders him, tone sharper than he means it to be.  He’s just stressed and afraid for his life, is the thing, and he doesn’t need terrified teenagers making it even worse.  “We already fucking _reek_ and if you throw up it’s just gonna make it easier for them to track us.  It’ll be like a blinking, neon sign in the middle of the woods.  Like a fucking 24-hour werewolf fast food joint.”

“Okay, I won’t puke,” Mason promises, taking a deep breath to steady himself.  “What do we do, then?”

“Well, other than some brief forays into Beasts and evil fox spirits, we’ve always been the dudes that figure it out, right?”  Stiles waits for Mason to nod his agreement.  “So let’s figure it out.”

It feels great to have a plan – even if that plan is just _let’s make a plan_ – and some of the tension drains from Stiles’ body, the anxious cramping in his stomach letting up just the tiniest bit.  That is, until the night air fills with loud, echoing howls that send bats and bugs and sluggish birds exploding from the trees around them, fleeing in terror until they disappear into the blackness.  It’s hard to tell how many supernatural creatures are approaching, but Stiles would recognize Scott’s howl anywhere.  It brought him back from the clutches of the Nogitsune and, irony of ironies, now it’s coming to kill him.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, his hands tightening around the skinny tree limb above his head.  The last thing he needs to do is fall from the tree and die before his friends even get there.  “Plan faster!”

“Shit, okay—um!” Mason gasps out, eyes so wide Stiles can see the white around them even in the dark.  “In effect, this is just like what happened to us, right?  They’ve got something in them that’s erased who they really are and they need to be called back to themselves.  We can do that!”

Another howl rips through the night, this one less powerful than Scott’s, but no less feral.  It sounds like Liam, a guess that’s confirmed by the shudder that wracks Mason’s body.  He knows _his_ best friend’s howl, too.

“Ignore it,” Stiles says firmly, then jumps onto Mason’s thought process.  “Right, so…calling them back.  Scott separated me from the Nogitsune and Lydia’s the one that pulled you out of the Beast, so we just need—”  He trails off, sheer terror traveling down his spine.

“—an alpha and a banshee,” Mason finishes for him.  “An _alpha_ and a _banshee_!”

Now it’s Stiles’ turn to feel like he’s going to vomit.  “Oh my gosh, we’re gonna die.”

“I don’t know about you, but I refuse to die in this tree,” Mason says, carefully pulling himself up to a standing position so he can make the precarious journey back to the ground.  “If we’re gonna die by our friends’ hands—”

“ _Teeth_.”

“— _teeth_ and claws and swords and screams, then I at least want to die while running as fast as I can.”

He has a point, so Stiles follows him down, body numb and mind racing.  “This sucks,” he says succinctly as he takes Mason’s offered hand and lands firmly on the ground.  “It sucks the _most_.  And we basically invented the concept of suck.  We’re sucking connoisseurs.”

Neither of them laughs.  It isn’t funny.

The problem with werewolves is that they’re crafty – not as much as kitsunes, of course, but enough that they’re able to throw their voices around so it’s nearly impossible to tell where their howls are coming from.  Stiles and Mason run in circles for a few moments, picking a direction that seems safe and stopping in their tracks when another howl lights up the night, seemingly from right in front of them. 

Finally, Stiles sighs in defeat.  “We’re gonna have to wait until we can see them,” he says, but he’s not happy about it.  He knows from experience that the second you see an angry supernatural creature is the same second you end up on the ground in a bloody heap.

He’d give anything for his baseball bat right about now.

But it’s back at his apartment along with his FBI-issued handgun and fifty feet of heavy-duty chain, so he squares his shoulders, stands back-to-back with Mason in the middle of the clearing, and waits.

Even the best laid plans of scared boys often go awry and the only warning they get is some crashing in the underbrush before their friends have them surrounded, snarling and pawing at the dirt.  That in itself is terrifying, but even worse, they’re _invisible_.  Every single one of them.

“I hate your boyfriend so much!” Stiles shouts hysterically to Mason, watching in horror as tree branches move aside seemingly of their own accord.  “You could’ve picked any boy and it had to be _him_?”

“Can we talk about this later?” Mason cries, turning until he’s standing right next to Stiles, their shoulders knocking together as they face the invisible wall of deadly supernatural force.  Then, without a bit of warning, he lets out a reckless shout and races forward, flinging a handful of dust in the direction of the savage sounds coming from their friends.

“Wolfsbane,” Stiles mumbles to himself, eyes wide.  If he wasn’t so worried about getting eaten alive by his own pack, he’d spare a second to wonder why Mason carries it around in his pocket.  As it is, he’s just extremely grateful that he does.

The effect is instantaneous and their friends melt in from the forest background, coughing and spluttering.  Everyone except for Lydia, who races forward with uncontrollable rage written across her face and lets out an ear-piercing scream, using her hands to direct it straight at Stiles.  The soundwave hits him like a semi-truck, throwing him backwards until he collides with a tree, cracking his head against the trunk.  His hearing is muffled and panic climbs up into his throat when he feels blood dripping from his ears.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because Lydia is fast approaching and gathering her breath, no doubt gearing up for another scream.  “Lydia, it’s me!” he yelps, hoping it’s louder than it sounds to his damaged ears.  “It’s Stiles!”

Whatever’s inside her doesn’t give a shit and Stiles offers up a shout of his own, scrambling to hide behind the tree and curling into a ball with his hands over his ears as another scream rocks the forest.  Branches fall around him, a larger one scraping his forehead on the way down.  When he finally uncurls, his vision is red with blood, dripping from the gash right above his eyebrow.

By the time he manages to wipe it away, Lydia isn’t standing by the tree anymore.  Malia has her by the arm, eyes ablaze with furious blue, and she growls through a mouthful of fangs and throws Lydia to the ground.  Stiles is on his feet in an instant.

“Malia!” he cries, relief flooding his body.  “Oh thank God!  We thought you were gonna—”

His gratitude dies in his throat when she roars loud enough to break through the muffled static in his ears, turning to him with her eyes full of primal bloodlust.  That’s when it dawns on him – Malia wasn’t trying to _protect_ him from Lydia, she was trying to get Lydia out of the way so she could kill him first.

“ _Shit_ ,” Stiles breathes and then he’s running.

He barely gets ten feet before her claws dig into his shoulder and he goes flying through the air to land next to Mason.  The instinct to break his fall is too ingrained to fight and he throws his arms out in front of him, crying out in pain when his wrist cracks beneath his weight.  “Please tell me you’re having better luck!” he shouts to Mason, but the deep claw marks across his face are probably answer enough.

“It was Liam,” Mason chokes out when he sees Stiles eyeing the cuts.  “Just slashed right at me.”  Then his eyes widen and he gives a single shout of _Kira!_ before he rolls out of the way.

The katana misses Stiles’ face by barely an inch, sticking out of the grass next to his poor bleeding ear.

It’s as he’s scrambling to his feet, wrist throbbing and lungs heaving with panicked breaths, that Stiles gets an idea.  “Your pocket knife!” he cries, spinning away from Kira as she slashes at him with her sword.  It cuts through his jeans and leaves a nick on his thigh that immediately starts bleeding.  It’s better than the beheading she was going for, though, so Stiles ignores it the best he can.  “Pain makes them human, right?  So let’s give them some pain!”

But when Mason mumbles a chagrined “Sorry Kira!” and stabs her in the soft part just above her hip, she does _not_ become human again.  No, she shouts louder than Stiles has ever heard her and calls down lightning from the fucking sky.

Everything smells like smoke and tastes like ash.  The grass around Kira’s feet is charred black.

Stiles and Mason are frozen for a split second, mouths agape and eyes wide, before they fall back into action.  “Run!” Mason shrieks and they do, ducking around trees and tripping over their own feet in their haste.  Stiles is sobbing out loud and he doesn’t even care.

They’re going to _die_.

When Scott leaps out of the darkness and pins Stiles to the ground, there’s nothing Stiles can do but resign himself to his fate.  Even before they were thrown into the frankly horrifying world of living, breathing mythology, Scott had kicked Stiles’ ass in every wrestling match they ever had.  Now that his best friend is an alpha werewolf – and a true alpha at that – Stiles doesn’t have a prayer. 

A strange feeling of calm washes over him as Scott bares his sharp teeth and leans down to roar in Stiles’ face, his eyes blood red.  Even through the fury and the primal instinct, Stiles can see _his_ Scott, his best friend, trying to claw his way to the surface.  So Stiles lets the fight drain out of him, his body going limp, and whispers, “It’s okay” because he needs his Scott to know.

Because at some point Scott is going to break out of this – whatever it is – and he’s going to be absolutely _devastated_ and Stiles…just needs him to know that he doesn’t blame him.  That he understands.  That he loves him and this doesn’t change anything. 

“It’s not your fault,” Stiles says quietly, holding back a whimper of pain as Scott’s claws pierce his neck in five different places, holding steady like he wants to make Stiles squirm  before the final death blow.  Stiles refuses to squirm.  “Go ahead, Scotty.”

Then he closes his eyes and waits to have his throat ripped out.

Instead of the blinding pain and subsequent darkness he imagined, what Stiles gets is akin to five giant needles being yanked unceremoniously from his skin.  Then, through the blood roaring in his ears and the distant howls of his friends, Stiles makes out a single voice, high-pitched with confusion.  “Stiles?” it says.  “What’s going on?”

Stiles’ eyes fly open.  “Scott?” he cries in disbelief, reaching out a shaky hand to touch Scott’s cheek, hairless and soft and twitching as his lips tremble.  Scott’s eyes are brown again and so, so scared.  “Are you back?”

“Back from what?” Scott demands, crawling off of Stiles like he’s just noticed he’s got him pinned to the ground.  “Stiles, I—!  What happened to your face?”  His eyes rake down Stiles’ body like he’s trying to assess the damage, brows knit together in concern.  “And your _leg_?  Did someone stab you?”

“Buddy, I’d love to explain, but we don’t have time right now.”  Stiles gets to his feet, forgetfully using his broken wrist to push himself up.  He lets out a single shout of agony because he just can’t help it.  “I need you to call them off.”

“Call who off?”  Scott wonders, bewildered, but Stiles grabs his hand with a desperate urgency and pulls him into the clearing instead of answering. 

What they find is explanation enough.

Their friends have Mason backed up against a tree, frantic pleas falling from between his lips as they snarl and growl and approach him slowly like actual predators stalking their prey.  Even from far away, Stiles can see that Mason has his eyes shut tight, waiting to be torn apart by his best friend and the boy he loves.  It makes Stiles want to cry, the memory of Scott’s claws cutting into his skin much too fresh.

“What the _hell_?” Scott cries and then he’s roaring, his eyes going red and his fangs gleaming in the moonlight.  Stiles will swear until the day he dies that Scott is _not_ his alpha – he’s a human, for fuck’s sake…he doesn’t _have_ an alpha – but he still feels the familiar pull in his chest as the sound echoes through the forest, tree branches shaking with the force of it.  He steps closer to Scott on instinct.

It’s nothing compared to what happens to their friends.  Malia and Liam instantly shy away from the sound, ducking their heads and scrambling backwards like chastised puppies.  Kira’s katana falls to the ground in a flash of electricity and Lydia flinches, sinking into the grass like she’s been awakened from a trance and doesn’t know where she is.  Then Corey appears out of nowhere, blinking rapidly like someone’s shining a light in his eyes.  They’re all trembling.

“Get away from him!” Scott shouts, words slurring slightly around his fangs.  “Get over here _now_!”

Terrified of disobeying their alpha, the group of repentant and thoroughly confused supernaturals snap to attention, stumbling over to Scott with their heads hung in shame.  Then and only then does Mason flop to the ground beneath the tree, his face in his hands.  Stiles can’t tell if his shoulders are shaking with sobs or hysterical laughter.

“You okay?” Stiles asks once he makes his way over, giving their friends a wide berth.  He sits down in the dirt and puts an arm around Mason’s thin shoulders.

“Yeah,” Mason says, then, “Did you know you’re talking really loud?”

Stiles huffs a humorless laugh.  “I think Lydia busted my eardrums,” he says forlornly.  When he reaches up to rub at his ears, his fingers come away covered in blood.  “I can’t hear shit.  It sounds like I’m underwater or something.”

“But we’re alive.”

“Yeah, man.”  Stiles lets his eyes flick over to where Scott is helping their friends to their feet, each in turn.  He allows himself the tiniest smile when Liam nearly jumps into Scott’s arms, clearly relieved that the scary alpha has been replaced by the gentle one he’s used to.  Scott hugs him fiercely and Stiles lets his head fall back against the tree.  “We’re alive.”

They sit together in silence, heaving breaths syncing up as they try to collect themselves.

Once Scott’s done dealing with their friends, he approaches Stiles and Mason slowly, like he’s worried they’ll be scared of him.  But all of Stiles’ fear has been replaced with relief and bone-deep exhaustion, so he lifts the corners of his lips in offering.  Scott smiles back.  “So, you wanna tell me what happened now?” he asks.

Stiles has every intention of telling him, but then the rogue omegas melt out of the shadows and there’s just no damn time.

They go for Malia first, which is a big mistake, and Liam second, which is an even bigger mistake.  Malia fights them off easily, claws tearing at their skin in a way that is now much too familiar for Stiles’ taste, and Liam’s doing just as well.  Not that he even needed to try, because Scott’s over there like a flash, roaring as he grabs Liam’s attackers by the throat, one in each hand.

He pins them up against a tree and demands, eyes bleeding red, “What did you do to us?”

One of them, a woman with long blonde hair, kicks her feet where they’re dangling off the ground and snarls against the hand around her neck, “ _Galena_.”

Scott’s just as confused as Stiles is.  “What?”

“It’s a mineral,” Lydia says from behind them, voice just barely loud enough for Stiles to hear.  But he _does_ hear it and he whips around to look at her, wincing when the sudden movement pulls at the puncture marks in his neck.  A fresh stream of blood drips down his skin.  “A lead ore.  It’s known for its luster.”

They look at her blankly.

If the night air wasn’t filled with the ugly sounds of Malia fighting off the other omegas, interspersed with the metallic clink of Kira’s katana colliding with bone, Lydia probably would have rolled her eyes.  But it’s the middle of the night and they almost killed not one, but _two_ of their own, so she just explains, “It reflects light.”

“ _Moon_ light,” the blonde woman hisses, eyes rolling back in her head as Scott’s grip gets tighter around her throat.  “You remember the room we kept you in?  It was lined with it.”

If the confused glance Scott shares with Liam and Corey is anything to go by, they _don’t_ remember.  Stiles huffs in disbelief.  He and Mason – not to mention, their parents – have been worried sick for two weeks.  _Two weeks_.  And Scott and the rest didn’t even know it happened.

Typical.

“So it concentrates and heightens the effect of the moon,” Lydia hypothesizes slowly and Stiles can almost see the wheels turning in her head.  “So much that it doesn’t even have to be full to make a werewolf go out of control.”

The other omega, this one a man who barely stands taller than Liam, smirks despite the lack of oxygen traveling to his brain.  “Smart girl,” he wheezes, hands scrabbling at Scott’s wrist like it’ll make him let go.  It doesn’t.  “All we had to do was expose you to the _humans’_ —”  He spits the word out like it tastes bad.  “—scent and you’d do the rest.”

“And that’s not even the best part!” the woman says gleefully.  “You know what else is found in galena?”

Lydia raises an eyebrow.  “Silver,” she says, resigned.  “It contains silver.”

“Poetic, isn’t it?” the man says and Scott growls, clearly deciding he’s heard enough.  He lets the omegas fall to the ground in a panting heap.

“What about Lydia and Kira and Corey?” he demands, standing over them with his arms folded angrily across his chest.  If Stiles didn’t know that Scott had a strict No Murder policy, he’d be almost afraid he was about to kill them.  “What did you do to them?  They aren’t affected by the moon!”

The woman laughs and it’s so patronizing a flare of anger ignites in Stiles’ belly.  “Oh, little wolf…you have so much to learn, don’t you?” she rasps.  “You’re a true alpha and that has more influence on a pack than you could ever know.”

It hangs in the air for just a second before Malia lets out a celebratory howl from across the way, successfully diverting their attention from the pair of inordinately smug omegas on the ground.  “Try getting out of _that_ , bitch!” she cries, cackling almost maniacally as the barbed wire she’s bent around the other wolves’ wrists like handcuffs sparks with Kira’s foxfire.  “You move, she shocks you again, got it?”

She’s fucking terrifying and Stiles is so, so grateful that she’s on _their_ side now.

Maybe it’s one last desperate hurrah or maybe they’re certifiably deranged, but the two omegas take advantage of the pack’s distraction and have Stiles on the ground in seconds, claws slashing through his sweatshirt and tearing into his skin, making him cry out at the blinding pain.  But this time, he doesn’t feel helpless and scared.  No, this time he’s _pissed_.  Because if he can survive the strongest pack in California – _his_ pack – then there’s no way in hell he’s getting taken down by a couple of shitty omegas.

That thought in his head and fiery rage in his bloodstream, Stiles lets out a shout of fury and grabs the closest weapon he can find: a rock about the size of his fist.  “Get _off_ me!” he spits, slamming the rock into the side of the woman’s head as hard as he can.  It knocks her out almost instantly and she slumps over on top of Stiles, a dead weight against his heaving chest.

He shoves her off without much difficulty, then kicks out at the other omega, the man. He doesn’t go down quite as easily, but Stiles does manage to scramble to his feet and get a few punches in before Malia growls and ties that one up, too.  Then she throws him into the pile of castigated omegas and it’s finally over. 

Everyone is staring at Stiles.

“That was so badass,” Scott breathes, his eyes wide and his lips twitching up into a pleased smile.  “ _Dude_!”

“Yeah, so badass,” one of the omegas says bitterly from the middle of the clearing, pulling uselessly at her restraints.  This one’s young, probably still a teenager.  “Just remember us when he kills you.”

Kira steps forward, eyes glowing orange and electricity sparking at her fingertips, clearly set on executing Malia’s former threats, but she stops in her tracks when Scott holds up a hand.  There’s understanding written across his face.  “Is that what happened to _your_ alpha?” he asks quietly.  Stiles has to strain to hear him.  “A human killed them?  One in your pack?”

The girl’s nostrils flare like she’s trying to control herself.  It’s answer enough.  “Packs are supposed to be for wolves,” she says, her gaze sweeping over Stiles’ strange conglomeration of supernatural friends like they’re some kind of spectacle.  There’s disgust written in her eyes.  “The second you let humans in, you open yourself up to betrayal and treachery.  It makes you weak – it makes _all_ of us weak – and if we want to survive, we need to stay away from them.” 

Scott crouches down in front of her, face soft with the kind of compassion only Scott McCall could drum up after such a bloody ordeal.  “Some of them are dangerous,” he admits and Stiles’ good hand curls into a fist, muscles going rigid as memories of bullets and Argents and Monroe prick at his skin.  “But some of them can be your greatest allies if you let them.  And that makes it worth it.”

He says it without a single trace of doubt and Stiles’ heart does something weird in his chest.  It makes Scott turn to look at him.  “ _It’s worth it_ ,” he repeats firmly, eyes going red for a fraction of a second, and Stiles believes him.

_-_-_-_

They leave the omegas tied up.  Without Kira’s foxfire to keep the wire electrified, it’s only a matter of time before they’re able to free themselves, but Scott claims he’s not worried.  “They know what happens when they come after one of ours,” he says matter-of-factly.  “They won’t try again.”

Stiles hopes he’s right.  He’s all maxed out on blood loss for a while.

That being said, he’s in remarkably good shape for being attacked by Beacon Hills’ finest.  The gashes across his chest from the omegas are the worst of it, the oozing blood bonding his torn sweatshirt to his skin in a way that makes him feel sick to his stomach.  It’s disgusting. 

His hearing hasn’t come back, either – a problem that has Lydia looking up at him with tears in her eyes and touching the shell of his ear with trembling fingers.  “I’m sorry,” she chokes out and it’s so quiet, Stiles has to read her lips.  She carefully wipes the leftover blood away, looking down at the redness on her fingers like some kind of penance.  Like she deserves it for all the pain she’s caused him.  “I didn’t mean to!”

He just kisses her forehead in answer, hoping it feels like _I know_.

Scott takes the worst of his pain, pulling Stiles to the side so they can be alone.  He’s already done the same for Mason, so he’s weaker than usual, unable to hold back a hiss of discomfort as he draws the hurt from Stiles’ broken wrist, tendrils of black creeping up his arms.

“That’s enough,” Stiles says firmly, pulling away from Scott’s grasp as soon as he sees the red flickering in his best friend’s eyes.  His wrist still hurts, but it’s manageable.  “I’m not letting you hurt yourself.”

It’s a testament to how bad it is that Scott doesn’t immediately argue.  He just nods his agreement, leaning back against a tree as he pants for breath.  Once he’s collected himself, however, he takes Stiles’ face in his hands, turning him slowly from the right to the left so he can take a look at his injured ears.  “Let me try something,” he says, close enough that it’s only a little muffled.  “Just for a second.”

Then he’s sliding his hands back until he’s cradling the back of Stiles’ head, his thumbs pressed gently to the base of his ears, taking his pain once more.  But this time he doesn’t stop.  He pulls and he pulls until his fangs drop and his brow goes thick and animalistic, making Stiles’ eyes widen with a mixture of confusion and worry.  Just as he’s about to yell at Scott to knock it off, there’s a rushing sound in Stiles’ ears like a waterfall and a loud _pop_ and suddenly he can hear again.

As soon as the sounds around him burst to the front of his awareness from where they’d been hiding in the background, Stiles jerks away from his best friend.  “Okay, okay!” he cries.  “It worked!  Now stop before you kill yourself!”

Scott sinks to the ground in a panting heap and Stiles follows, exhausted.

They sit there for a few moments, leaning heavily against each other, before Stiles finally finds his voice.  “What brought you out of it?” he asks quietly, absently running his fingers over the five puncture marks in his neck.  They’re still bleeding, but it’s nothing compared to his other injuries so he doesn’t even wince.  “You were—pretty much gone, Scott.”

Scott finds Stiles’ knee in the dark and gives it a squeeze.  “No one else calls me ‘Scotty,’” he says, so fond Stiles can hear it in his voice.  Stiles’ face goes warm, but not the embarrassed kind of warm.  The happy, safe, _pack_ kind of warm.  “I heard it and I just felt like something was wrong, you know?  Like _I_ was something wrong and I wanted to be right again.”  Then his voice drops to a whisper.  “Like someone _needed_ me to be right again.  Someone important.”

And that’s just…too much for Stiles to handle after a night full of terror and spurting blood, so he buries his face in Scott’s shoulder, trying not to whimper out loud.  He’s not entirely sure he succeeded, but he knows Scott doesn’t give a shit one way or another.  Scott meets Stiles where he is…always has.

“That’s what it was like for me, too,” he admits for the very first time.  “With the Nogitsune.  You howled and the instinct to come back to you was stronger than any fucking demon could ever be.  It’s—a lot.”

“Yeah,” Scott agrees and then they’re quiet again, watching their friends huddle protectively around Mason like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight ever again.  Stiles understands the feeling – now that he’s got space in his brain for anything other than survival instinct, he’s already trying to work out the logistics of Mason moving into the apartment.  Liam and Corey would probably have to come, too, if the way they’ve cemented themselves to Mason’s sides is anything to go by.  That’s okay…the futon is huge and Stiles has gotten better at sharing his food in his old age.

Scott’s head comes down to rest on top of Stiles’ like he’s too tired to hold it up any longer.  “Would it be cheesy to say that I’ll always come back to you?” he asks in that earnest way Stiles secretly loves.  “Because I wanna say that.  Right now preferably.”

Stiles laughs.  “Probably.  But I’ll let you get away with it just this once.  You fixed my ears.”

“Okay,” Scott says, nodding seriously.  “Stiles, I’ll always come back to you…and we need to get you to a hospital.”

Scott’s right as usual, so Stiles lets himself be hauled to his feet and doesn’t even protest when he notices the streaks of black travelling up Scott’s veins.  He’s starting to get dizzy like he’s on the edge of passing out, from the blood loss or adrenaline crash or both.  “Worth it?” he slurs because he’s too out of it to shut himself up and he needs to know.  “You sure about that?”

“Positive,” Scott says, draping Stiles’ arm over his shoulders.  Then they walk toward the closest town, their friends protecting their backs the entire way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
